Zed city operation: Waste
by WillyScagels
Summary: Two months after the Delta Station Incident, Agent Sanderson volunteers to lead a rescue mission into a zed infected city to rescue the civilians and other survivors. But not everything is as it seems, not even to members of the triangle team.
1. Introduction

The sky couldn't have been any redder on the gray scale land of Nevada. On a dusty worn down highway in zed territory, a pickup truck rode across the dirt and stone as it reached the city limits. Escape was nearing for the group.

In the driver and passenger seats were two grunts. One of them lit up a cigaret as he looked out his window as the driver rode on. In the back were crates of food, camping supplies, blankets and other things they collected over their stay in the zed zone. The other grunt, the driver, had blood stains on his shirt from a previous fight he'd been in. He thought little of what he had done the past few days and was now just concerned with reaching the end of the rode.

"Hey, there's something at the end of the road." the passenger grunt pointed out as the driver slowed from 70 to 55. Then as he approached what appeared to be three moving trucks spread out over the street, he slowed down even more. "Oh thank god." the passenger grunt said with relief in his voice. "It's agents."

The pickup truck came to a complete stop in front of the three trucks. Standing in the road were an ATP engineer and an agent who looked different from most agents. The agent wore a set of state trooper style sunglasses instead of the standard AAHW smith shades that agents had. He had on a black suit that was recently pressed and clean like his white dress shirt and burgundy tie that stayed wrapped around his neck. And unlike most people in Nevada, he had a full head of dark grey manhair. As for the ATP agent who stood beside him with a loaded G36, a long crack adorned the left side of his mask.

The driver opened his door, followed by his passenger, stepped out and pulled a Beretta 92F pistol out of the vehicle.

"Hello there." the agent said, extending his right hand out to the grunt as he shuffled forward, his gun pointed at the ground. "I'm agent William Sanderson, recruitment officer of the Agency Against Hank Wimbleton. I assume you came fr-"

"Shut your hole, Scum!" Sanderson stopped talking as the grunt got up in Sanderson's face. Sanderson said nothing and his engineer did nothing but stare on.

"Earl?" the other grunt asked. But before he could speak again, the grunt called Earl barked at him:

"This is all their fault!" the grunt took a look back at his partner and saw he had his H&amp;K Mp5 in hand, shakily aimed at the ATP engineer who stood unmoving.

"Before you do anything you might regret," agent Sanderson said unusually relaxed for the situation "you might want to leave. We don't need to know what you did or who you were. Just hand over your guns and you can get in your truck and drive away." Earl raised his hand gun in defiance.

"You're not takin' my gun!" Sanderson cocked his head to the side, cracking his neck before straightening himself up again.

"Oh yeah?" the agent said in a taunting tone of voice. He could see the grunt before him hadn't had much exposure to the zeds and didn't have much common sense for that matter either. "Watch this." a gunshot rang through the air as a bullet ejected itself from a casing, through the barrel of the gun, and out into the air on a course to agent Sanderson's head.

But with amazing ease, Sanderson did two motions in one second. He shifted his head at amazing speed you would have thought he'd break his neck and dodged the bullet entirely. Then, brought his left hand around, grabbed the barrel of the gun, pushed it to the side, and with his right hand, gave one powerful punch to the guts stomach.

Earl let go of the gun and fell on his back, clenching his guts in pain from his opponent's blow. The agent wasn't the least bit tired. He took the pistol by the handle and opened up the left side of his coat just enough to slide the small gun into an internal pocket.

"Did you see that?" William asked his opponent. Earl responded by starting to cry in pain as blood slowly dripped out his mouth. "Exactly." The A.A.H.W. agent shifted his glance at the other grunt who stood hunched over, pointing his gun now at him. Sanderson stepped around the grunt on the ground who was still writhing in pain, and walked towards the other grunt.

The grunt looked down at his friend and saw blood dripping from his mouth. He looked back at Sanderson and immediately dropped his gun and raised his hands in the air. Sanderson got no more than a foot away from the man who was two seconds from pissing himself. The red tied agent lifted his left hand out and with his thumb and index finger, grasped the grunts cigaret then plucked it from his mouth.

"Give me your guns and your ammo." Sanderson said as he placed the cigarette in his mouth.


	2. Chapter 01 - The survivors

The city was only a few miles away and our anti-heros were close enough to see black smoke rising in the sky. The city looked eerily beautiful from the front view of the agency's truck that rattled with ambition down the lonely road of Nevada. Sanderson's friend, another agent, drove the truck towards the city as Sanderson sat in the passenger seat of the vehicle, looking at a cell phone.

The other agent had a white suit with a black tie around his neck that was partly hidden by the jacket. He had a pair of red smith shades on that shined in the light of the day. This was an uncommon agent, a special one sent from the Control branch of the agency. The two were just finishing up a conversation as they near the city limits. A conversation that would carry on into their real mission.

"So then when we got to the party," Sanderson went on. "I realized that we left SI's car at the office and he had to stay with us the whole night."

"I see..." the other agent said as he tried to focus on driving. "So why not just stay at the station and let Control handle this?" Sanderson looked out his window at the passing desert scenery. It looked too peaceful a land for an outbreak of monsters to be happening here.

"I have my reasons." Agent Sanderson stated. "I was requested to come handle this as a test." He turned his head to the driver. "I had a few artificial enhancements done on me after an…. incident." a long pause followed his words before he continued. "These enhancements involved increased reflexes, speed, and my skills in hand to hand combat."

He turned his head back to look out the window, the cool wind blowing through his manhair.

"Those skills won't be needed too much against zeds." the white suited agent said as the sign for the city flew past them while they speed closer to the city.

"I didn't say they'd be used against zeds." the former politician said. the other agent was silent at this. What did this man mean? Sanderson pressed a button on the screen and an ATP engineer appeared on it. "SI, we are approaching the city. Has circle team taken position yet?" The engineer on the phone nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, Willy." The engineer said in a dull quiet tone. He pulled up his mask and placed it out of the screen view. "I got a new mask." He pulled out of the corner of the screen an ATP mask with an orange lens instead of the standard yellow. It had become a new think for the ATP to have special colored masks to add uniqueness to themselves. This one was no acception.

"Circle team has cleared a path in the streets for you to enter in." SI stated as he slide the mask over his head and adjusted it to his face. "Just make sure you get any survivors as well as any survivors of the agency's SB."

"Wait, what?" Sanderson looked over at his driver then back at the screen. "I wasn't aware that we had a lab in the facility." SI shrugged then tugged on his mask.

"Well, that's the thing." He responded. "It was a secret lab on the top level. They were advancing the soldat program. If any members of the agency survived this, you'll find a few soldats huddling together somewhere."

"What exactly were they advancing in them?" the truck started to slow as buildings became visible on both sides of the vehicle. Apartments and gas stations with cars swerved into them. One gas station on their left has a semi smashed right through the building, its a wonder the thing didn't catch fire and explode. Another apartment had two cars pulled up next to it with a substantial amount of red and yellow blood in front of the door. The agency tried to contain the situation when it started, but it failed… miserably. As the truck turned around a corner to avoid a car pile up with mutilated corpses in them, they found themselves in the business section of the city. Office buildings on either side with a few hotels here and there. That's when they saw the dead standing in the road.

"Hold on." Sanderson said to SI as he held up his hand. "Stop right here. We'll continue on foot." The white suited agent obeyed and put the brakes on. "SI, i'll have to call you back."

"Oh take your time." the ATP agent said a little bored. "I'll just watch the Blair grunt project, get a couple of hot dogs, play cards with Gale and the other boys. Just don't get killed okay." SI said a little softer as he leaned into the screen. "We don't want to hear the amazing Willy Scagels is dead." with that the screen went black. Sanderson opened the inside of his coat and tucked the phone inside for safe keeping.

"Willy Scagels?" The driver said confused then started to laugh. "That's your name?! Hahaha!" Sanderson opened the withered passenger door and hoped outside.

"It's a family name." He said. "Get the boys out of the back, I got this one." The driver opened his door and slipped out still chuckling at the name he just heard. Sanderson pulled his coat open again and reached in the retrieve the Beretta from earlier. He had a large number of mags hidden on his person, courtesy of the survivors he met earlier, but he was still about conserving ammunition.

The three zeds in front of him were recently infected, you could tell from the fresh blood on their shirts. One of them was an agent with red smith shades that had large cracks in them and a ripped up suit. He probably had struggled to fight off the other two which were regular zeds, however one of the had satchel on his left side. These corpses reeked of decomposition and other foul sents that follow you after death. Their rotting green flesh would have frightened Sanderson in his younger years, but he was older now and had survived the agencies intense training to be a stronger leader.

He waited for the undead to start to shamble towards him before raising his pistol to take aim at the closest one, the agent.

Agent Sanderson casually squeezed the cold trigger ejecting a round from his gun, sending it in the general direction of the zed. The white flame shot out a foot from the barrel as the bullet left it and dug itself into the skull of the decaying enemy. The zed went a couple more inches before Sanderson fired off another two rounds. One skimmed the top of the zed's he and the other blew through it's eye and out the other end. This time, the zeds hands dropped to it's sides as it fell face first onto the pavement. The the grey haired agent shifted his pistol at one of the other zeds and took a number of shot at his head. Two rounds penetrated the zed's head and the other bullets up and down it's neck. The corpses were still shambling at him, the last one hung back behind the other.

Sanderson shook his pistol at the zed as it walked in past his range and was now too close to shoot at. Sanderson raised his pistol up as the zed grabbed him ready to bite into him. Sanderson, with all his might, brought the pistol butt down on the skull of his opponent and caved in half of the creatures head. As the zed shook a little stunned before dying again, it let go and fell backwards, it's head squishing softly on the ground.

Sanderson looked down at the body and instead of taking aim and attacking the other zed that neared him, he dusted off his coat with his free hand that the zed had dirtied. That's when a loud gunshot filled the air. Sanderson looked up to see blood pouring out of a large newly formed bullet hole in the remaining zed's head. Sanderson turned his head behind him and saw the ATP engineers that were in the back of the truck still getting all their equipment together.

"Did you guys do that?" Sanderson asked them. They didn't even seem to hear what he said or just wanted to ignore him. Sanderson looked back at the zed and saw it had fallen to the ground and was spilling blood everywhere. He looked up to the right and saw something he didn't expect to see, the barrel of a sniper rifle. Sanderson began to examine the building, since from where he was standing, couldn't see the sniper himself.

He was on top of a three story hotel with a big billboard on the top that was advertising a man holding a hot dog in his hand, but it had the words 'Save us' written over it in what appeared to be black paint. The windows in the lobby area, or first floor, were all boarded up and decorated with dark red blood from zeds who were piled up around them. It must have stunk like hell in there. The door was luckily made of steel or something and was sturdy enough to not need a barricade.

"Anyone in there?" Sanderson said as he stepped over the zed at his feet and walked over to the door that faced the road. The agent turned back at his fellow co-workers and hollered: "Hey guys! We got survivors!" This time instead of just standing there, the four ATP engineers sprung into action and fell in line behind Sanderson, all of them carrying Mp5's fully loaded.

Sanderson raised his gun at the door and stepped on the sidewalk, the other members of his team spreading out on either side of their leader. They pointed the guns at the door as Sanderson pointed his gun in the air then stopped in front of the door. "We're here to rescue any survivors! Hello? Can you open the door? Please, please. Sir!"

A few seconds passed before the door actually shot up, revealing an ATP soldat standing there with a g36.

"Oh," he said disappointed and a little unimpressed. "It's you. Why aren't you holding some sort of fundraiser right now?" Sanderson almost burst out laughing but held it inside. "Well, come in I guess." The soldat stepped to the side, out of the doorway and let Sanderson and his agents in.

Upon entering, Sanderson saw the reception desk before him and a hallways running horizontal to the back of the desk. On the desk were a number of weapons and ammo laid out very carefully. Standing beside the desk was an 1337 agent holding a Deagle in his right hand which hung at his side, and a survivor in a worn out padded vest and a red sweatband. He was holding SR-3 with an attached laser sight in his hands but was missing the magazine.

The engineers walked in and started going down the hallways to check the area. "We heard on the TV you'd be coming but didn't believe it." The soldat informed sanderson "Then again," he continued as he walked over to stare through the boards that covered the window in front of him. "you wouldn't leave your precious ATP personnel behind would you. After you left up to clean up your mess."

"Our mess?" Asked the white suited agent who just walked inside as the door closed behind him. The soldat turned his body to face this other agent and said in a cheerful tone.

"Baldy!"

"My name is Balard." The agent stated as he walked up to the soldats face. "And we didn't leave you. You had your orders and I had mine. But now I have new orders." He put his hand on the soldats chest and pushed him up against the wall. "Where is he?" the soldat was confused at this question.

"Who he?" The soldat asked with a feeling of surprise in his voice.

"Doctor Eric. I know you know, he was with you last time I saw you." The soldat clenched his fists in the spare of the moment.

"But I don't know. That was a while ago." Agent named Balard pulled a bowie knife from his coat pocket and brought it up to the soldat's neck

"Oh please don't insult my intelligence, it makes me irritable." A hand reached over from behind and grabbed the blade of the knife then pulled it back, causing Balard to look back. William stood there and shook his head but that was enough for Balard to snap at this man who he apparently didn't want to listen to.

He jerk the knife out his fellow agents hand, cutting it, sending orange blood through the air and onto the wooden planks over the windows. Sanderson pulled his hand back and held it close to him while Balard and the soldat stared in awe at the newly colored blood soaking into the wall. "Oh shit." Balard said as Sanderson let go of his bleeding fist.

"You bitch!" Sanderson said angrily. "I should punch you in the damn face!" The agent clenched his fist and brought it back, preparing the hit the Control agent for his actions. Balard dropped the knife and jumped out of the way, holding his hands up. Sanderson lowered his fist again and let the blood run down his soft sensitive fingers.

"Okay, okay, just calm down before someone gets shot!" the soldat said holding his hands out. "Lets all just settle down and we can discuss the situation latter." The padded vested survivor and the 1337 agent just stood there holding on to their gun tightly. Sanderson looked over at them then over at the scared, white suited agent again.

"No, ill talk about it right now." Sanderson reassured him. "The white collar can go over while you and I discuss things." Balard nodded fearfully and stepped back, then turned around and walked down the left hall way. Sanderson sighed as he looked down at his wound. "How many of you are there?"


	3. Chapter 02 - Stay out

"And then there's Sam." The soldat said to William as they walked up the stairs and onto the roof of the hotel. The roof was barren except for a grunt leaning up against the edge, holding some kind of sniper rifle, looking down at the streets below. "There he is." The ATP agent stated pointing at the grunt.

The grunt had his head turned away from the two and he seemed to be waiting for more enemies to come down the street attracted to the shots fired earlier. The soldat walked over to him and put a hand on the grunts shoulder. "How many today?" He asked. The grunt shrugged.

"I don't know. Eight." the grunt responded. "I haven't really been keeping track today."

Sanderson walked up behind the two.

"Do you know which of these building the Doctor is hiding in?" The grunt pointed up at a large skyscraper a few blocks away from their position. The building must have been used by the agency since it looked in rather better shape than the others.

"I saw movement from some of the windows on the twentieth floor last week." He pointed out. "I assumed it was only a few zeds but it might have been your doctor." The grunt shrugged and placed his rifle on the crate beside him. "I mean, that is the agency's base here." Sanderson scratched his head. His hand was still bleeding but only a few fine droplets were running down the side of his head.

"Soldat?" Sanderson asked. "I appreciate your cooperation but can you and your friend leave me alone for a minute. I need to make a call." The grunt picked up his rifle, turned, and headed for the stairs. The soldat nodded his his head and followed in behind his comrade.

"Take your time." He called back. Sanderson walked over to the edge of the building and stared out over the landscape. The entire city was in a smoldering mess. There were cars and trucks crashed into buildings and flipped over on the road and sidewalk. There were few corpses that were recognizable in the streets below as human bodies. The ground and sides of some buildings had blood of victims smeared all over them. The was another agency truck parked on the sidewalk with blood spilt all over the back doors that were covered in scratch marks. There were a few dead zeds around it, probably shot by that sniper, Sam.

Sanderson reached in his coat pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He pressed the center button then slide his finger across the screen to unlock it. His home screen had a few apps on the home screen but William impulsively pressed the call button. A pad of numbers appeared on the phone. He typed in a few numbers then brought the device up to the side of his head. A few rings followed then a woman answered the other end.

"Hello?" She asked.

"Hey, Molly." Sanderson replied. "Sorry I didn't call you earlier." He heard a clear sigh on the other end.

"You didn't have to do this, Will." The girl said honestly. "They have other agents to do that. Annie has been in front of the TV watching the agent go in, wondering where you are. She's really worried." Sanderson sighed himself and looked up at the blood red sky.

"I can't just stand by and watch as innocent people and agents lose their lives like this. I'm not just doing this for the agency either." His tone grew very serious as he tightened his grip on the phone, his orange blood running down the side. "I'm doing this for our daughter. I want her to grow up safe and not have to look over her shoulder when the agency or her old man's not there." The recruitment officer cleared his throat and tried to sound cheerful now. "That's why I put in for a vacation after this. We'll book a hotel at the beach and spend a who-"

"You're not listening!" The woman shouted. Sanderson flinched at her voice which hurt him deep inside. He knew he wasn't going to be able to squirm out of this one. "Our daughter is wanting her father who never there for her and sometimes I wonder if he even cares about her any more! You think one week and a month is enough for her? She needs a father in her life!"

"You are not going to put the blame on me." Sanderson stated defiantly. "I had to take this job and I have to save these people. Because if I don't, no one will." There was a brief silence before the crushing words came down on the cocky agent so confident that he thought he could get away with anything. Anything… except caring for his child when he needed too.

"If that's how it's gonna be…" Her voice was breaking on the other end. "Then don't bother coming home anymore."

The words ripped through Sanderson deeper than any bullet ever could. The only words he could say were ones that he would ultimately regret.

"Well maybe I won't." Before letting her get another word in, our anti-hero, and anti-father, took the phone down and pressed the end call button. "DAMMIT!" He yelled as he shook the phone. William felt like getting on his knees and crying his heart out, but he didn't. All he did was say his curse and shove his phone back in his pocket.

"Family problem?" Sanderson turned around and saw the white suited agent standing there by the open stair case. He started walking to his fellow agent and walked to the edge beside him. "I had serious family problems before I joined the control branch. It was hard at first, learning to forget about those you once cared for. But I got used to it."

"You have your orders, agent Balard." The recruitment officer said as he kept his back to agent Balard. "You keep them in your sight and stay out of my problems. If you don't, it's gonna be a long day for you."

"Just trying to help." Balard insisted. "I talked with the team. Since you have different orders from me, I suggest we break into two teams. You take two ATP agents up to the top levels while I carry out my mission with the other two agents." Sanderson started walking to stairs and Balard quickly turned and followed right in behind him.

"What about the survivors?" He asked as he reached the first steps and began walking down. "I assume their going to cover us in some way?"

"Yes." The Control agent responded. "They plan to take positions in the lobby and on a nearby roof. The soldat says that there are barricades around the front of the building, so they can take cover there." They had now reached the bottom of the staircase and had walked into the lobby where the rest of the survivors had gathered. The ATP engineers must have gathered outside, awaiting their team leader.

There was Sam the sniper carrying his rifle; the soldat, holding a magnum; the 1337 agent with a sawed off shotgun; and the grunt in a padded vest and headband, holding a AR-15. They weren't much of a fighting force but they would be able to cover the operatives while they carried out their mission. Sanderson scratched his head then removed his trooper sunglasses.

"All right, people, listen up." Everyone turned their attention to Sanderson while Balard walked past him and over to the entrance. A few gun shots could be heard outside from the ATP agents who were probably holding their ground against some zeds. Sanderson himself walked over the door and stood in the doorway as he went on to put his glasses back on after wiping sweat from his face.

"Our primary mission is to rescue you… but we also have a secondary mission that we need to execute. The Triangle Team and I have to head to the agency base in this city to carry out that secondary mission. Everyone of you are going to take up arms and cover us while we carry out our orders. If any of you don't follow through, or if you break line and turn coward on us, you'll be left here with no transportation, no extra ammunition, and no back up. We are gonna MARCH in there and we are going to STAY in there until our objectives are complete. Then you'll be evacuated with us and the other agency members of Circle Team... Any questions?" Sanderson didn't give them a second to respond.

"No? Good. We're leaving immediately."

The glass doors of the agency burst open as Sanderson, Balard, the soldat, and the four ATP engineers rushed into the lobby. The sounds of gunfire following after them as the survivors followed and covered them against the dead that were chasing after them. The room was somewhat dark as the over hanging lights were extremely, extremely dim. There was a reception desk with a large TV screen hanging above it flashing the agency's emergency broadcast system that informed the people that rescue teams were coming to get them and civilians should remain indoors until help arrives. There were two hallways along the sides of the reception desk, that are covered with blood, and along each hallway there are three elevators each. Down the right hallway was the body of a 1337 agent, leaning against one of the elevators with a deagle in his right hand and a bullet hole protruding out the side of his head, which slumped over on his right shoulder. Down the left hallway there were a few boxes thrown on the ground with papers scattered around them. There were small puddles of blood here and there as well as five dead Zeds that were mustered in front of an elevator riddled with bullet holes from some sort of rifle.

"Alright boys," The soldat yelled over the gunfire. "Fall back around that barrier and cover Triangle Team!" As the survivors inched into the building, shooting at the six Zeds that pursued them, wanting all their blood. Sanderson headed off down the right hallway with two of the four ATP engineers while Balard turns around, pulling out a snub nose revolver and firing a few shots at the Zeds while his two engineers run down to the elevator in the left hallway. Sanderson dashed up to the nearest elevator and presses the 'up' button. In a few seconds the elevator dinged and opened it's doors to reveal a Zed standing up from a recently killed professor, his face mauled beyond recognition leaving his lab coat stained with crimson blood.

Sanderson jumped back as the zed rushed him. Before he could pull out his gun to fend of the new threat, his two engineers opened fire at the zed with their mp5's. Almost all the rounds fired landed in the neck, shoulder, or the head of the Zed before it fell to the ground causing the agents to cease their fire. Sanderson turned and gave a thumbs up to his comrades then motioned to the elevator. "Let's go team!" The two engineers rushed in the elevator, one heading immediately to examine the body, with Sanderson following in after them. The doors closed and the other ATP engineer pressed the thirty-seventh floor button. With another the ding, the elevator car shook once and then started it's ascending motion to the top levels.

"Sir?" The engineer examining the corpse said to his boss who looked back at him.

"Is it him?" Sanderson asked. The agent shook his head.

"This guy's named Matt. We're looking for Eric right?"

"That's right." William looked up at the screen above the doors and watched the numbers climb. "When we find him, we meet up below with the rest of the squad."

"Hey, Will?" Asked the agent beside Sanderson, who was still watching the numbers.

"Yeah, Parker?" Responded the recruitment officer who now reached into his coat to pull out his Beretta.

"Never mind you got this." The 'Parker' agent reconsidered. A few seconds later the elevator dinged again and the doors opened to a very well lit lab. The three slowly stepped out of the elevator car and into the room with their guns raised. There was a table on the far side of the room where a chair with it's back turned to the team stayed motionless. Along both sides of the room were stationary consoles that were attached to tubes, containing what would be ATP clones. Sanderson slowly made his way to the table to examine a laptop the was laying on it, when one of the agents noticed a blood trail leading off next to one of the tubes on the left side of the room. He slowly made his way over to the trail and quickly saw that the dried up blood led to a dead 1337 Zed that was laying over the lap of the bloodied corpse of a scientist. Both had large, gaping bullet holes out the sides of their temples but there was no gun nearby. The agent looked over at Sanderson and shook his head before standing up and taking a few steps back.

Sanderson was now right in front of the table and reached out to grab the laptop when the chair turned around to reveal a professor holding a P1445 which he quickly aimed directly at Sandersons head. He had on a white lab coat, black researcher goggles, and black gloves which gripped his gun "Oh," He said surprised as he lowered his weapon. "I'm terribly sorry. I thought you were another one of those zombies." The researcher pointed his gun at a forty degree angle and rested his hand and the handle of his gun on the table.

"Are you doctor Eric?" Sanderson asked hoping that this could be the end of his mission. Hoping that he could finally leave, head home, and make up the rest of his day with the family. But his hopes were shattered by the next words that were uttered.

"No, i'm afraid not. I'm his colleague, Stunder. Eric disappeared yesterday, made for the elevator. I assume that he ended up just like all the others. " Sanderson's heart sunk low at the news. "I told him not to leave," The scientist continued. "I told him we had to stay put. But he didn't listen to me. We were supposed to survive this together…" Sanderson looked at the Zed in the corner and then at the dead researcher next to him.

Stunder turned his chair slightly to get the same glimpse of the dead figures. "That was Dr. Coft. He was with us for only six weeks before all this started to happen. Such a waste that I had to put him down. He deserved better this." The researcher turned his attention back to Agent Sanderson. "You look familiar yourself. But I don't remember seeing you around this facility. Just who are you?"

William didn't know what to say. He had so many questions running through his skull. But he knew he had to take things once at a time.

"The names Sanderson." The agent replied. "William Sanderson. Triangle Team." The scientist looked down at his feet. Sanderson could feel the grim tone of the man before he even started talking. He was feeling grim beyond belief and who could blame him with what was happening outside?

"Wait, you're the propaganda man aren't you?" Stunder looked up again at Sanderson. "Now what's a man who sits behind a desk all day doing out here? No, that doesn't matter either. Please, just take the files and go."

"Files?" William didn't understand what he meant. "No, we're the rescue team." Sanderson stepped closer to the desk and leaned into the professor's face. "We're here to get you and the others out."

"Don't lie Mr. Sanderson. We know you're here for the endurance research documents I've spent my whole career on." Sanderson stood upright and looked down at the man who now refused to make eye contact. "Your employer's probably forgot to pick them up while they were desperately trying to find the traitor in the city then flee from the carnage." Stunder turned his chair back away and stood up, facing the white wall of the lab. "Then again," He went on. "the agency has a main mission in their sights." The professor turned around again and walked around the side of the table over to Sanderson. "If you are here to rescue us, then I suggest we not waste any time."

"But..." Sanderson hesitated. "Is there anyway to find the doctor?" Stunder reached up and scratched the side of his head.

"Well… Yes... There's a control room on the top level. We should be able to pinpoint his position in the building with the consuls in there."

"Alright, let me report this to Rodney." William shoved his hand in his pocket and pulled out a small radio. He pressed a switch on the side and held it up to his mouth. "Rodney, we've located a survivor. He says that we can locate Eric by the control room, we're gonna head there now."

"All right," The voice of the soldat from earlier came in. "These zed are really pissing us off here so hurry up or we're gonna lose the floor." Sanderson, without skipping a beat shot back:

"Roger, over and out." The agent slipped his radio back in his pocket and turned around. "Everyone, with me. Move out."

Authors note: Notice all the things wrong with this story? AAHW personnel have actual families and are humanized with real emotional problems instead of just punching bags for the "heroes". Zombies referred to as zeds by everyone except one guy. They never say AAHW once. NOT ONCE! This story is such a mess even with out the grammar errors.


	4. Chapter 03 - I told you

The control room was desolate. Only one side on the elevators went up to it in an attempt to make it a more "secure" area of the facility, but that mattered very little now. The room was pitch black. So dark that not even the dark Nevada sky could comprehend the feeling of fear and isolation that this one room had if not for the eerie glowing light from one side of the room. It was a simple room, with the light you could see it was circular except for one side (the side the elevator was on had to be flat), but that wasnt even the most distinguishing feature. Along the rounded side were three large monitors that hung from the edge of the ceiling and glowed with dim grey light. occasionally they would flash the agency's warning message, telling people that help was on the way. Below the monitors were consols, wrapping themselves along the walls.

The humming of the elevator came into earshot of the room, getting louder and louder until it stopped. The doors of the elevator car slid open, flooding the room with bright light.

"Fall in." Sanderson ordered. All four of them (Sanderson, Stunder, and the two engineers) all walked into the room and immediately fixed their eyes on the center screen. Sanderson walked right up to it's consol and pressed the 'enter' button. The screen went black, the white, then black again with the white word: Pass code… appearing on it. Sandersons stared dumbfounded at the computer.

"Password?..." He said out loud. "Uhhh, does anyone have a password?" The two engineers came up behind him, looking around his shoulder and noded to each other. They both walked in front of their leader, pushing him back.

"We got this." They both said simultaneously, taking up positions at the computer. The two engineers begin typing walls of text onto the screen, cracking the security system. Sanderson pulled out his radio and pressed the switch on the side.

"Rodney?" He said. No response. after ten seconds, he pressed the switch again. "Rodney? Come in." After about twenty seconds he turned his attention back to his engineers. "Hows the coding coming?"

"Give us five minutes." One of them said.

"You can't do it any faster?" The other agent shook his head as he kept typing in code.

"I'm afraid not. Try to contact that soldat again." Sanderson turned around to face Stunder.

"Do you think he's alright?" Stunder stared at him a moment silently. Sanderson pressed the switch on the side of his radio again. "Rodney!" He waited five seconds before he heard an answer this time from Rodney the soldat.

"I'm here..." He heard the soldat answer. "We were over run." Rodney responded grimly. "I'm heading to the roof." Sanderson waited a minute taking in the agents words and tone then came to a dreadful conclusion.

"You were bit weren't you?"

* * *

Rodney slumped down against the wall of the elevator, blood smearing down the side of the car. He sat there holding his bleeding side and breathing slowly. "Sanderson," he said into the radio. He was in obvious pain from where the zombie bite into his body. "the first thing i'm gonna do when I get home is punch you in the face." The soldat chuckled to himself as he let go of the radio and closed his eyes slowly. He could fall asleep forever, but he knew he couldn't do that, he had a mission to complete… he had to survive this and much worse… zeds were not taking him down. He was drove in after things were getting more and more serious as the city fell from control. "Hey, Sanderson?" Rodney said as he gently pressed the side of his radio again. "You wouldn't happen to have a cure you guys were working on up there?"

There was a brief silence, probably Sanderson talking with his team. "We'll find something for you. Just get to the roof for now. Did anyone else make it?" Rodney hesitated. He broke the line when he was bit. Anyone could still be down there fighting while he rocketed up to the highest point in the building.

"Um… I don't know. I left them behind." He was waiting for the angry response of sanderson but it didn't come. What did come was the understanding:

"I understand." From his fellow agent. "I would have done the same thing. Just hang in there we'll find something for you." Rodney looked up at the flashing light above the elevator doors. He was only just getting past the twenty-second floor. He sighed and rested his head against the wall and put his hand on the floor and pushed himself up to his feet.

"Dammit." The soldat pushed himself into the corner and shot his hand to his side, clutching his wound. He went over the facts about zeds in his head. 'shoot for the head' 'they can move faster if motivated but are usually slow' 'if you get bitten you have about four hours before you transform into one of them depending on the damage'. He had about two hours in his head if he just stayed awake and stopped losing blood. "This was my last clean suit too goddammit!" He yelled out in the elevator. He looked down to his side and saw his degle on the floor.

He reached down and picked up his gun, almost falling over in the process, but he managed to stay standing. Rodney sighed loudly, as if anybody could hear him in this small room. '_Only a few more floors_' he kept thinking.

* * *

"Hows it coming? Did you break it yet?" Sanderson asked impatiently as he looked over the shoulders of his teammates.

"Will," One of them answered "we are twenty seconds from cracking this open and getting to your-" _Access granted_ flashed across the screen as a list of options opened up on the monitor. "We're in!" The options on the screen were lined up in red letter in one long row.

[Security cameras]

[Motion sensors]

[Staff list]

[Live staff locator]

There were many more, but the agents immediately scrolled down and pressed enter on the live staff counter. The screen zoomed out and a cutaway of the building appeared on the monitor. It was outlined in white and inside the cut away were a number of red dots. On the floor that they were on was a single red dot, probably representing Stunder. There were a number of red dots on floors fifteen, twenty eight, twenty six, twenty five, thirty two, and forty four. There was also one red dot heading up on the elevator, that was most likely agent Rodney heading to the roof.

"Okay," William said as he examined the map. "Stunder, where's the experimental cure you were talking about?" The doctor scratched the side of his head.

"I think it's on floor forty. It wasn't my department so-"

"We're looking it up now." One of the engineers stated as they backed out of the map and began typing in commands. "Okay, it should be on the thirty eighth floor. According to these readings there's movement in there so be careful." Sanderson shrugged.

"We won't be long. You two head to floors twenty five and twenty six. We'll all meet on floor twenty eight then work our way down eventually heading to the lobby." The two engineers continued typing.

"Roger that." The other responded. With that, William and Sanderson walked to the elevator, pressed the down button, and waited for the doors to open.

* * *

The doors of the elevator car opened wide and let in the bright red sky of Nevada, flooding into the car. It was starting to get dark. Rodney lifted up his gun and slowly stepped out. Each step felt like a nail being pounded in a few inches into his lower ribs, but the soldat went on. Taking it like a real soldier was harder than he thought it would be. As he got out of the elevator, it closed behind him. '_In a hurry to get rid of me?_' Rodney thought to himself. The roof of the building was bare, nothing but the elevator doors and an ac unit on the far side of the building.

He walked slowly over to the edge of the building, almost limping while going. "This is such bull shit." He said out loud. "It's not like I killed an civy…" paused as he reached the edge and looked over. "Well actually I did kill a civy, but I don't deserve this." The streets had zeds streaming into the agency building he stood on. Walking over cars and around corpses, ignoring the other fallen zed, focused on getting into the facility. His men were in deep shit. It would be lucky if any survivors made it out alive.

* * *

Sanderson sighed as he still went down in the elevator. "So we just get in, get the cure, then head to the other floors." Stunder noded as the doors of the elevator opened up revealing something very surprising. Something that Sanderson and Stunder would never forget.

Standing there in the white lab was a very strange creature, the size of a mag agent, made entirely of of blue slime and it was staring right at them. It had a long snake-like body with two tentacle appendages and a round distended stomach that had something stuffed in it that almost looked like a persons body. What was even stranger was that It had the head of a young girl with long slimy hair that reached down to her shoulders. It smiled a gooey smile that made Stunder shiver and Sanderson smile at it.

"Hello, handsome." It said to the two causing them to return it a look of concern.

'_Ah shit._' Sanderson thought to himself. He could tell by the creatures tone that it was a girl. "Hello. We're here for the experimental cure." The creature twisted her head and flapped her snaky, slimy tail on the floor.

"I might." She responded. "Who wants it?"

"William Sanderson, I'm with the agency." the creatures eyes widened.

"I thought you looked familiar. You look a little more buff in person." She twirled her tail and started rubbing her gut. "It'll cost you."

"We don't have time for this. Our friend needs it." Sanderson stated stepping closer. He really didn't have time. His soldat needed this cure immediately. He might not have known the guy, but if he could help his men, he was going to help. "What is it you want?"

"Oh nothing special." The slime said rolling her eyes. Sandersons heart stopped when she gave her offer. "You stay here with me and i'll give you your cure." William shook his head. He hated making these kinds of deals. They were both dangerous and a lose, lose situation.

"I don't think that'll work. We all need to get out of here and I have an important job to do. Besides what would you want with me." The creature frowned and turned her body away. The gut sloshed as she did.

"I've been here for three days with no one nearby. I really need some company. Couldn't you stay for at least a week?" The girl said as if she was going to guilt trip a former politician. Sanderson had no choice though. This thing looked immune to bullets and could probably kill him if he tried to steal to cure himself.

"Okay," He said finally. "How about you give me the cure, we go save our friend, rescue the survivors in the other rooms, then I come back here." Sanderson walked around her to look her in the eyes and gave her a soft smile. The smile he used to trick people into a false deal. "You can trust me, miss… What was your name?" The creature looked at him with strange puppy dog eyes.

"My name is Katy." The monster informed him.

"Kate," Professor Stunder suddenly butted in. "I can offer you something better." The creature turned to face Stunder and stared at him face to face. Stunder seemed to know this creature, or at least to have heard of it because he made her an offer she almost immediately accepted. "There is a traitor to the agency. If we find him we could bring him back to you and pay you off that way."

"Okay." 'Katy' said as she held up a small bottle of orange liquid. "I guess that's as good as a date." Sanderson's face turned bright red. So that's what she meant by it. With that, he quickly swiped the chemical out of Katy's sticky appendage and shoved it in inside his coat pocket. "Oh and William?" The slime added just as Sanderson started walking to the elevator. What could she want now? He thought to himself as he stepped in the elevator car.

"What is it?" He asked. The agent didn't want to stay any longer as he started to feel uncomfortable in the presence of this creature.

"If you want to come bye and see me," She said with a smile. "I wouldn't mind." Sanderson felt could feel himself turning bloodier than red. Why did this monster want him all of a sudden and why offer such a deal?

"No ma'm," He answered back quickly. Kate gave a devilishly evil smile in return. She knew he was getting nervous and she liked it. "I've got a lot of work to do and need not be distracted."

"Well I can change that in a hurry!" Without sparing any time, Sanderson quickly pressed one of the elevator buttons and the doors shut closed.

"She's always like that if you're wondering." Stunder informed him.

"You know her?"

"Unfortunately yes." Stunder leaned up against the wall of the elevator. "She was a fellow researcher that worked along side me. She actually took one of my test samples a few days ago. She probably injected herself too."

"That's what it does?" Stunder glanced over at his fellow co worker.

"It wasn't supposed to, but yes." The doors opened and Sanderson turned himself out to the door. Rodney sat next to the end of the building, resting his head on his hands staring up at the sky.

"Can you believe it?" The soldat asked his leader. He turned his head to the side as Sanderson walked up behind him and pulled out the cure. "It takes three hundred years to build a city, only takes a week to break it."

"Shhh, don't talk. Heres the cure, drink it." Sanderson unscrewed the top of the container and held it up to the soldat's mouth. "We have to get a move on."


	5. Chapter 04 - Reports

"Alright," the engineer said to his partner. "There is some type of staff member on this floor. Fan out and find him then report back to me."

"Yes, Sir." Came the reply. The doors of the elevator opened and light flooded into a dark office building. There were four rows of cubicles on either side of the two agents and it was getting darker. There were windows on either side as well but the light was fading from the sky and it would be dark soon.

"You take the left and go down the line. I'll take the right." With a nod and the raising of their mp5's, the two broke off paths.

The first ATP agent (the one heading to the right) was called Rocky. Not because he was a tough guy or anything but because that's how his life was, rocky. From the day he came out of the tube that he grew in for Auditor knows how long, to the day he was filed as an active combatant, life was always rocky for him. Rocky secretly didn't want to do this job, despite it being the thing the world needed right now. All he wanted to do was draw. He was an acceptable cartoonist, and that was enough for him. He wanted to do political cartoons for newspapers and websites making fun of bad politicians and other world leaders. Of course, the agency would never let him do such a thing because he was made with a synthetic soul. Maybe if he completed this mission he could plead to his bosses to go into the agency's propaganda branch and work in their papers, posters, and web pages. He counted in his head the number of zed kills he got and came to the total of ten. He also came to the conclusion that he had four magazines left. One hundred twenty rounds wouldn't be enough to survive this. He looked at his gun and forgot to add up the mag in his gun. So he really had five mags and would argue the one in his gun was only half filled.

Rocky's partner was commonly called Thorn. Why? He was a burden on many of his team mates. Always waiting to be the last one to start firing, the last to follow in on orders. His other members usually got killed on the missions he went on, leaving him to survive and prosper. Before he was an engineer, he was one of the many agents in the Agency before being selected for the ATP and survived the brutal training from hell that they went through to become the best. He joined the agency instead of a gang so he could gain access to a wider selection of guns and so he could rock a cool ass uniform. He would usually make up stories for his friends to impress them, but they knew better than to believe him. He had more than seven mags (210 rounds) on his person and hadn't made one kill on the entire mission. Thorn decided before coming on this mission that he wouldn't be shooting anything unless absolutely necessary. So far, there were no necessary shots to be made. In truth, he was some what of a pacifist. Hesitating to shoot live enemies, even the zeds. He wanted to quit the agency but felt it would be wrong to just leave. There was also the fact that the agency might just come back for him and force him to stay in their ranks again. So all he could do is survive.

As soon as he made a turn around the last cubicle, he saw a bad sign. A human corpse was laying face down on the floor. It was one of the 1337 agents with an execution style bullet wound in his head. "I got a man down!" Thorn said to his partner who was just going around two doors on his side of the room.

Thorn gave a visual pat down before rolling the body over. His black, Smith Shades were missing but aside from that and his dirty crumpled suit, the body was in near perfect condition. "Execution style wound to the head, no bite marks."

"Any gun on him?" Rocky asked, interested.

Thorn looked around the body quickly seeing no sign of a firearm. Not like it mattered, why would you even try to shoot yourself in the back of your cranium was beyond him. He proceeded to kneel down and pat down the body physically. There was almost nothing on the man besides his black suit and tie.

"Nope, no gun. Not even any bullets." Just as he was going to finish the search he heard a paper crumple as he ran his hand over the bodies chest. Something was in the breast pocket. "Wait, I think I got something." Thorn stated while he opened up the coat and reached into the pocket to feel a folded piece of paper. He pinched it and pulled out what appeared to be a small note that was scribbled quite quickly. He opened it and read some interesting information referring to the incident.

-Field Report 07-

The agency is still sending out it's radio message from three days ago and now has started sending televised versions of it across the city. Whenever we turn on the T.V., theres the colored bars rolling across the screen:

"Remain indoors. Teams will be dispatched to rescue you."

But we know that's a lie. The teams that are sent in are too cocky and try to go rambo and take on the zeds head on. Most of the Agency's "Rescue Teams" have either gone and organized with the remaining agents in the city, or have been completely wiped out by zeds. The remaining members of my team plan to meet up at the Floral street checkpoint on the other side of the city to make a stand and possibly cover an evacuation move with the remnants of the Agency. We heard word that there were some uninfected parts of the city there held up in some local stores and we plan to get them out while trying to take care of the zeds. Wish us good luck. We hope to meet you at the checkpoint and cover the evacuation.

-Elliot Edwards

Rocky came over and snatched the note out of his partners hand. He looked over it briefly and stuffed it into his pocket.

"We might need this for later." He explained to Thorn. "It'll give us a better understanding of what happened here. And besides, Sanderson might want it. You know he collects documents like this." That's when the two heard a voice in the next cubicle.

"He-hellooooo?" The voice said. It was a weak, exhausted voice that you would expect a dying man to uter. Rocky raised his gun and slowly walked over to the side of the next cubicle. He pointed to the other Engineer and pointed to the cubicle. Thorn shook his head and just stood by the body. Rocky growled in frustration at the mans actions.

Looking back at an angle inside the cubicle, he quickly jumped out of the side of it, pointing his gun at the contents. There was another 1337 Agent laying up under the cubicle shelf with a bullet hole protruding out the side of his head. Crimson blood was dripping down along the frame of his glasses and seemed to stick out in the shadows. The fact that he was still breathing was a miracle. "Oh," He said and coughed a little. "the kill team… You're double checking like I thought you would."

Rocky kept his gun on the agent as he stepped to his side to crouch down and examine the wound. It was a some what shallow shot, the bullet submerged in the bone of his skull. The engineer could see the bullet, but an attempt to remove it without the proper tools would kill the man. That's when he noticed that another hole was located at the man's waist.

'_He's screwed' _Rocky thought to himself. "What happened to you?" Rocky asked the man, wanting to know the whole story before his untimely death. The Agent coughed louder this time and grabbed the Engineer's gun.

"Go ahead, finish me off good this time." Rocky pulled the barrel of his gun away from the dying man and let the Agent's hand drop to his side. Thorn walked around, holding his gun with his right hand alone, and stood in the doorway of the cubicle. This area was very nicely organized aside from the dying coworker. A tower of neatly stacked papers laid straight and organized by priority just above the Agent. Next to the papers was an UZI with a loaded mag in it.

"Easy there." Thorn requested. "You're losing a lot of blood. Just tell us what's going on." The leet agent sighed and looked down at his feet.

"Just a little while ago… A man… from our... department... came to our level..." He inhaled deeply as he went on, Rocky and Thorn listened, interested in the story the man had to tell. "He had other intentions than rescuing us. He… pulled a gun… and shot my team members… like dogs..." The man looked up at the two engineers. "He said he had others searching the building for survivors… then he shot me..." With his left hand, he pointed at Thorn and said in a slightly stronger voice:

"I thought you were the others he mentioned… to come finish the job. Oh god!..." Rocky stood up with ease and backed up into Thorn, who also took a step back, in fear that the man was lying and might have really been attacked by a zed. The Agent grabbed at his disfiguring head wound and groaned.

"Please," he begged. "get out of here while you still can. He came here just... an hour ago. He could still be here… Forget about the others…" The agent flinched as pain shot back down through his body. "We're doomed." With that final statement, the Agent's head rolled over onto his shoulder and he fell onto his side. Rocky stood there, trying to connect the information into something that made sense to him.

_Was there a spy on their team trying to kill off the witnesses? If there was, who was it? _Rocky turned and pushed Thorn to the side and started for the elevator. "Come on." He said in a determined tone of voice "Lets get to those other survivors, quickly." Thorn pursued his comrade as he marched his way to the doors.

"Well, even if he was telling the truth," Thorn began as Rocky had now reached the elevator and pressed the down button. "there's no guarantee that the killers are still in the building." The doors opened up with a swift sliding motion and a slight creaking noise. Rocky and his partner both stepped in, turned to face the doors, and let them shut with a clunk before pressing the floor twenty-five button.

"Even if they left, we still need to rescue whoever we can. No exceptions. It's our job." The Engineer looked down at his feet and noticed that his hands were getting sweaty. He wasn't nervous or anything although the situation would turn stressful. Maybe his body was subliminally scared of the undead, or even another mysterious threat that might appear on the horizon.

The elevator shook as it went down in seconds and stopped as soon as it started. The doors creaked open again and opened up to a small room filled with lockers lining the wall. Rocky trudged out and Thorn shuffled behind him. Almost all of the lockers were hanging wide open and emptied, ransacked by the remaining staff.

"I'm gonna check these for any weapons or ammo." Thorn stated as he approached the row of lockers. There were only four down the line that were still closed and probably had something in them.

"Fine," His partner replied. "I'll go find the survivor in the other rooms." Rocky pointed at the floor. "So stay here… Wait for me… and don't blow anything up." Thorn turned to face his partner, saluted with his left hand then turned back to the unopened lockers as Rocky left to the other room.

Thorn ran his hand over the locker door, bringing it down to the handle. _What ever was in here better be good_ he thought to himself as he pulled up on the lever and opened the container. Before examining the contents, he turned his attention to the door. There was a note on the door that read:

"Thursday transfer. Clean out locker and desk."

Thorn shook his head. _Who ever he was, he doesn't need to clear it out now._

He looked inside and saw a black, light coat held up by a coat hanger. Underneath it was a ar-15 assault rifle. It was unloaded but there was a single mag at the bottom of the locker. The Engineer leaned over and set his mp5 on the ground then reached in and grabbed the rifle tightly. Pulling out, he noticed that it was a little dusty from not being used recently and might actually need to be cleaned before usage, not like he would need it. After a quick examination, he set the rifle back in the locker before closing it. He started to wonder who had the locker and what happened to them. They were probably killed, whoever they were. Thorn moved on.

He walked to the locker next to it, grabbed the lever, and opened the locker. On the door of this one was a picture or a group of twelve agents posing in front of a transport truck with the caption: _The best mother humping team there is._

Thorn reached up and plucked the picture from the wall and took a closer look at it. He flipped it around to see if anything was written on the back. Sure enough, there were a number of names written on the back of the photograph; _Adam. P, Eric. W, Patty. F, Dillon. H, Evans. G, Matthew. H, Matthew. S, David. C, Brian. C, Shawn. R, Connor. B, Elliot. E, Photographer: Christopher_

Thorn looked down in the locker, not to see a gun, but a present. It was wrapped in green and red striped paper, topped with a white ribbon for a bow. The Engineer leaned forward and picked it up, giving it a harsh shaking. He decided not to open it since he couldn't hear anything inside and carefully placed the small package back in the locker.

While leaving it open, Thorn went down to a locker that had a harsh dent pressed in to the metal. There must have been some jack ass who wanted to act like a show off, so he punched his locker so hard that it made an indentation in it. The engineer sighed. He didn't like people like that in the first place so he could care less if the man who did it was dead or not. Thorn spared no time in opening this locker like the others. But it was a surprise to Thorn to see upon opening the container that it was empty. All that was in it was a sticky note on the door. He looked closer and read it out loud:

"_Gone to help cops, be back soon._ What the hell?" In a feeling of irritation, he slammed the locker shut so loud that Rocky probably heard it from the other room. He moved on to the last locker, near the doorway. It opened easily when the engineer pulled on it. In fact, it nearly fell off it's hinges it was so loose. The contents however were far from poor condition. Standing up it's barrel was a Mossberg 500 shotgun with a case of shells sheltered under it.

* * *

Rocky walked through the doorway, holding his sub-machine gun out in front of him. He was just asking to be disarmed. As he walked into the next room over, he immediately noticed the stacked boxes around the other side of the room. There were about six boxes stacked around the doorway, which was wide open, with a table flipped on it's side in the middle.

The Engineer slowly approached the position with his weapon pointed right at the doorway, ready to shoot who ever was camping there. There was, thankfully, no blood around the area so maybe there was some one left. Against all his better judgment, Rocky called out:

"Hello? Is anyone in there?" No answer. It was dead silent. A few seconds went by before Rocky could hear something stirring. He stepped back and put both his hands on his gun, aiming it into the doorway. The shuffling of feet became apparent as they drew closer. Rocky's heart started to increase in beating. Was it a zed? The darkness of the next room blinded him from identifying the noise.

"Did you bring any smokes?" Asked the mysterious stranger as the shuffled into the doorway, allowing the light of the room to wash over them. It was an 1337 agent who was missing his shames but, as an exchange, had a thick black handlebar mustache. His coat was ruffled and the collar was slightly torn. A zed might have tried to grab him but to no avail. Rocky's first thought was to ask the agent where his shaving kit was but held off on pushing that kind of image of himself just yet.

"No I don't." Rocky said truthfully. "But I do have a team of well organized operatives ready to rescue you and any other survivors." The agent grabbed the side of the table, as if to hop over it, but instead, pushed it to the side, giving him a clear path to walk though.

"That's it? Damn, I was expecting a raze here instead of getting out of this place." The agent said. Rocky turned around and walked out of the room, expecting the survivor to follow after him which he did.

When Rocky entered back into the elevator room, Thorn was still staring at the picture he had taken from the locker. Why would he do that? Thorn was examining the picture closely, trying to think if he saw any of the members in the photo on the other floors of the building, but he couldn't remember. The cloned Engineer stepped past him and pressed the elevator button for the fourth time. The doors immediately opened and the 1337 agent walked right inside ignoring Thorn.

"Where we heading?" He asked as the two Engineers walked inside after him.

"Can we get a name?" Thorn asked, he was still staring at the photo. The agent shrugged and Rocky pressed the floor twenty-eight button on the wall. The elevator shook as it started heading up the shaft.

"Christopher." Answered the 1337 agent. "Why?" Thorn looked down and slid the photograph into his satchel. He suddenly got the idea that maybe he should continue collecting this sort of stuff and present it to headquarters when he returned.

"Oh, no reason." Thorn assured him. They stood there quietly as the elevator reached the next floor in just a few seconds. When the doors opened up, they revealed a cafeteria with long rectangle tables and chairs horizontal to the group. The lunch line must have started on the other side, as none of the men could see a pick up line. Just a number of large windows on either side of them. The sun was nearly set in the horizon and the darkness was now more intense than ever. They needed to meet up with the others and quick.


	6. Chapter 05 - The motive

"So who are we waiting for?" Christopher asked the two ATP Engineers. Christopher was busy looking out the large window in the room, staring down at the streets below. The zeds were now more active than ever around the front of the building.

_Nobody was going to get out that way._

His eyes were particularly focused on the sniper on the roof of the building next door, who was taking shots at the zeds in the streets. '_Who the hell does he think he is_' the agent pondered to himself.

He turned around and looked at Rocky and Thorn who were busy conversing at a table on the other side of the room, their weapons in between them on the table. Christopher was being ignored. He stomped his foot loudly and that seem to get Rocky's attention in a second. The Engineer turned his head to face the other agent and asked quickly:

"What is it?" Christopher put his hand over his eyes and asked his question again.

"Who are we waiting for?" Following up by saying: "I want to make sure it's not anyone I know."

"We're waiting for Agent Sanderson, Dr. Stunder and that soldat who's name I can't remember." Thorn tapped his partners shoulder and and gave him a name.

"I think he called himself Roy. Ricky? Something like that." The two men shrugged, and Chris turned back to the window. It was such a long way, over forty stories, down. The street lights still glowed in the now present darkness that engulfed his world. He missed how the world used to be before the chaos. Before the madness. The engineers on the other hand didn't give a rat's ass about the past. They only cared about getting out of the hell that they hadn't even begun to experience yet. Not Chris. Chris had friends that he had been hoping to meet up with, but so far, he was the only one of _the best mother humping team_ left alive.

"We've been waiting for twenty minutes!" He stated, his back still to the window. "Are you sure he's coming?" The agent questioned. "We can make a break for it. Signal a helicopter or something." Thorn got up out of his chair and put one hand on his hip and his other on the table.

"Do you have a radio? Something we can signal a helicopter with?" Chris was silent for a moment before awkwardly answering:

"I… thought... you would..."

"Oh no, that comes outta your pocket, buddy." Thorn restated. "We only have a truck and it's down on the streets. Now if you haven't taken a look at the streets then i'd like to know what you're staring at." Chris felt a little hurt by the comment and didn't feel like even responding to his rescuer. That's when the doors across the room burst open, sending Rocky and Thorn to immediately go for their guns.

"Freeze!" They heard being yelled at them by one of the assailants. The Engineers grabbed and aimed their guns, steading them at the new targets. Standing in the doorway were two men. The one on the left, aiming an FN FAL, was a grunt with dark red blood stains on his shirt. A bloody hand print seemed to be almost burned into his cloths, reminding him of his kill. On his head was a dark grey beanie and a pair of yellow tinted star shades that looked like they were from the last century. An odd combination for an agent.

The other was a simple 1337 Agent, armed with a remington 870. His black shades shined in the light of the room. The black plastic complimented his clean, perfectly pressed suit and black tie that hung from his neck. He jerked his shotty forward at the two engineers while his henchmen pointed his gun at Christopher, who held his hands up in the air. The guy must have know who Christopher was because he quickly shifted his aim over to Rocky and Thorn. Christopher was concerned that these idiots might ruin the rescue.

"Hold it and drop those guns!" The black suited man demanded from the ATP agents. Rocky kept his gun aimed at the man and did not respond.

"Agent-" Began the engineer calmly. But the black suited man didn't take a second to interrupt him.

"I SAID DROP!" Rocky did respond this time by slowly pointing his gun down and placed it down on the table in front of him. Thorn was also quick to lower his before he could be fired upon.

"Connor," Christopher said to the smith shade wearing agent, pointing their guns at his new allies. "these guys are part of a rescue team, they're here to get us out of here."

"Did they tell you to say that, Chris?" Said the Agent, keeping his eyes and weapon locked on Rocky and Thorn. "We can put a bullet in both of em right now! Just say the word."

"No, guys, they're fine." Insisted Christopher. The one called Connor held on to his gun for a few more precious seconds then stole a glance of his partner before taking his left hand off the rack and slowly lowering it.

"Sorry, old habits." He insisted as he began walking over to Chris. The other guy pointed his gun down and let it hang freely by his side. "So who are you guys anyway? Are you actually here for a rescue? Or are you here to kill the dead like the last twenty teams command sent?"

"We prefer to just rescue people." Thorn insisted. "We came here looking for Dr. Eric." Connor adjusted his shades before replying and looking off at Christopher.

"He's dead." Said the agent, as if it was really no big deal that the man they came there for was dead.

"Dammit." Rocky said under his breath. While heading over to Christopher and extending his hand out, Connor smiled. He grasped his apparent friend's hand and shook it firmly before letting go.

"Good to see you made it." He stated.

"Why were you looking for Eric in particular?" The beanie wearing guy pondered to the Engineers.

"Um… Hey, what did you say your names were again?" Thorn asked as he pulled out the picture he had pocketed earlier, trying to dodge the question. "You're Connor and he is…?"

"This is Roy." Connor stated and pointed back to his team member. "What's that you got there. A document of some kind? Special orders?"

"Uh, no." Thorn replied. "It's a photo we found of _the best mother humping team there is_. I figured we could use the best team there is here."

"I'm sure others survived. Most of them went down town actually. They tried to-" Connor chuckled but was cut off this time before he could finish.

"Hold Floral street." Finished Thorn. Connor turned his head back back to look at the Engineer who just stared back at him as if to telekinetically say:

_How did you know that?_

"Lucky guess." Just when Connor was about to ask a question, the elevator quietly dinged and opened it's doors. Connor and Roy snapped into action and brought their guns up, aiming then at the elevator, ready to open fire. The first things they caught sight of where a pair of raised hands.

"Hold up there!" Came a familiar voice. It was Sanderson. Along with , two more 1337 agents, and a very tired looking Rodney who couldn't stop scratching the skin around his eye piece. "We're friendly!" Connor turned his head over to his partner, Roy, who asked the other agent:

"Are you the rescue team?" To which Sanderson replied:

"Yes we are." He took a few steps out of the elevator putting his hands down, as if that was a signal the rest of the group followed him. William then pointed to the people with him. "Dr. Stunder, Rodney, and 1337 crewmembers Denis and paul." Everyone turned their attention to Sanderson as he walked near Rocky and sat down next to him. "Why don't we all take a little rest while we're up here."

"William," Rodney began as he started walking to Sanderson. "we haven't been walking for long." Thorn and Rocky exchanged glances and then said simultaneously to the Soldat:

"We'll take a break."

That was enough for everyone else. The newly added agents Denis and paul walked over to Roy and began conversing with them about their situation. Talking about Sandersons pan on escaping since the lobby was over run, getting out of the city, and getting on with their lives since their loved ones in the city were probably already dead. Dr. Stunder made his way across the room and through the doors on the other side. He was going straight to the pantry to check for any food there might have been. Thorn got up, walked over to agents Christopher and Connor, trying to properly introduce himself and possibly make up some heroic story about himself to impress. Meanwhile, Rodney just stood there staring at his current leader. Waiting for acknowledgment. He was annoyed at the way the others just brushed him off and wished for respect. But he knew he couldn't step out of bounds with his injury. The Soldat would need the help to escape and finish his mission.

Rodney glanced around the room taking in the faces. Most of the men he saw he'd never seen before today and wouldn't really care if they died so long as they didn't interrupt his plans. But he did know agents Denis and Paul. He kept his eyes fixed on them as he went through his memory.

Denis was a serious agent, a little too serious for the job, maybe, but he got his work done. He twirled around his crappy Glock 20 as he talked with the other agent and went on about having to shoot fellow undead agents to save himself. Denis was a strong man, deep voiced, and was actually quite muscular under his suit. The Agent had the power to crush a man's windpipe with one really good hit before trying to strangle you to finish the job. Fighting was not uncommon in the agency, so his strength came in handy for Melee battles Rodney remembered him as the agent who operated the firing range of the facility as well as trained new grunts. Denis was also a man who enjoyed bringing pain onto others. It was a very negative trait that was kept from the public area yet it was encouraged in the agents when in private combat. He was looked down on by the Soldat just like the man's partner, Paul.

To Rodney's memory, Paul had recently been given the rank of agent a week before the incident took hold and had little to no field training. He was also a slipshot marksman and a poor excuse for an agent. _He'll probably die before we leave the building_ thought Rodney. Paul was also soft spoken and usually let people boss him around. It was worth wondering how he wasn't dead or turned undead for that matter. Though he was new, he got his jobs done and advanced into the 1337 crew after just one month. Paul was the kind of man that annoyed Rodney with his ineffectiveness in a combat situation.

Yeah, sir, you might want to take this." Rocky went on, drawing the Soldat's attention back to Sanderson and the others. "In case something happens." The Engineer opened his satchel and retrieved the note, handing it over to Sanderson. Sanderson slowly took the note from Rocky and unfolded it.

"What am I reading?" He asked his employee. Rocky tapped the piece of paper a few times while he answered the man.

"It's a report by one of the staff during the outbreak. We found it on the body of an agent. I think he might have been killed because of it." Rodney stepped a bit closer and looked over the shoulder of Sanderson. Glancing at the note his face fell. He forgot about the reports and struggled to remember if any confidential information was written in any of them before concluding there wouldn't be.

"That's quite the accusation to make." Sanderson stated as he finished reading the note. He folded the report , pulled open his coat, and slid it in his internal pocket, then patted it closed. "I'll keep it anyway."

"Sanderson," Rodney said to his boss. "why would you want to keep something like that?" Asked the soldat.

"Souvenir." He answered as he pulled out his pistol from his coat, pointing it at the ceiling. "Anything else you two would like to report?"

"This photo!" Thorn hastily pointed out as he pulled the picture of _the best mother humping team there is_ from his satchel. He quickly handed it over to his boss who snatched it up as soon as it appeared. Taking a close look at the members in the photo, Sanderson tried to see if any in the picture were here in the room with him. "The best mother humping team there is, Sir." Thorn added. Sanderson glanced up at him.

"What makes you say that?" The Engineer pointed to the picture.

"Look on the back." His boss did just that. After turning the picture around, a smirk appeared on his face.

"I'm glad they wrote that there, cause i'm not." He said, then took the photograph, lifted up his coat and stuck the picture in his pants pocket. "If you find any other things like that, save them for me." Rodney put his hand on Sanderson's shoulder.

"Sir," He said in an almost pleading way. "shouldn't we get going? I'm not feeling so hot." Sanderson started to wander off, recalling that there were no more rooms to cover in the building.

"Okay," Sanderson said finally. "but how are we going to get through the lobby." Rodney hadn't thought of this before he asked. The lobby was probably over run by now, with only Sam living due to his camping on a roof. Rodney had hoped to avoid this option, but it seems he was left with no choice.

"There's a secret exit in the basement of this building."

"That's good enough for me." Sanderson swung around and placed his feet on the ground. With one motion, he stood up and began walking to the elevator car. "Alright, everyone in the elevator!" The higher ranking Agent walked to the cars door's and pressed the down button. The agent began walking to the doors as they opened. Except for Roy and Stunder, who was in the back. "Alright, Rocky, send everyone down to the basement." Sanderson ordered. "I'll meet up with you later." Rocky saluted his commander as the doors shut in front of his face, sealing him in the metal container.

Sanderson turned back to look at Roy who stood by the wooden doors of the cafeteria. "Stunder, come on!" Sanderson yelled back to the scientist.

"I'll be right there!" Stunder hollered back. Sanderson pointed at the grunt and pointed back the the elevator car.

"Get over here, Grunt." Roy didn't say anything. The agent informed the man of his intentions. "I want you ready to go, now get over here."

"I'm not leaving this room." The grunt stated. "There are zombies out there and I don't plan on dying." He pointed with his free hand up at the ceiling. "We should head to the roof and contact an escape chopper to get out of here, not go through the rest of the building, let alone streets." Sanderson gave the Grunt a blank stare before pointing his handgun at the guy's head.

"Get in the fucking elevator, before I make you get in the fucking elevator." Roy didn't take kindly to the threat and raised his FN FAL at the Agent.

"Don't push me." He said. "Cause i'll kill you right now if you do." Sanderson, instead of responding, calmly pulled the trigger of his weapon, discharging a round. Roy trembled a little as his hands went limp and let go of his rifle. The gun dropped and clattered to the floor. The now dead body fell forward and planted it's face onto the floor. Crimson blood began to form a small puddle on the cafeteria floor. Brain started to cave in an attempt to fill in the gaping hole in his head. Stunder burst through the doors of the room and backed up against the doors when he saw Roy on the ground.

"Jebediah Christoph!" He screamed. "What have you done?!" Sanderson was too busy pointing his pistol at Stunder to answer him. All he could say was:

"Elevator, now." Stunder didn't delay the order a second. He dashed over to the doors and waited for Sanderson's next command. The former politician held his gun out in front of him for a few more seconds before turning to the elevator again and pressing the down button. It took longer than last time for the car to reach them this time since it was at the bottom floor, but after a minute and a half of silence, the doors opened and the two men stepped inside. Sanderson turned and pressed the B1 button and the car began its descent to the bottom.

"Hey, Stunder?" He asked the scientist. A few floors passed before he got a response.

"Yes?"

"Why did you make that offer to that spaghetti monster? And more importantly, Why do you think there is a traitor among us?" Stunder was quick to answer.

"This situation was planned to destroy this group of the agency."

"I'm sure that theres more then that going on if that's the case." The doors opened up to reveal Thorn in the middle of a long horizontal hallway. He stood there, smoking a cigarette, leaning up against the wall, with his mask pulled up and resting on the top of his head. The engineer immediately pointed to the left and said:

"They went that way." Sanderson responded with:

"Then we're going that way." He pointed down the right hall. "I'm sure we'll miss something if we don't." Thorn shrugged. Thorn plucked the death stick from his mouth and blew out a cloud of smoke.

"Then have fun with that."

* * *

"We need to find Eric." Sanderson stated to the scientist after just coming out of a room labeled: HOLDING CELLS. Which contained nobody except the body of a zed. After checking a few rooms, Sanderson and Stunder reached the far end of the hall they now stood in front of the Archives. Sanderson walked up to the door and pressed a button next to it.

The door slid open and inside made Sanderson's blood run cold. Along the wall there were filing a cabinets, a thick, box-like computer monitor on a table, a few shelves stacked with boxes of files and documents, and three bodies sprawled out on the floor, riddled with bullet holes. It was Balard and his team. They'd been shot to death. Sanderson walked over to Balard's body, trying to avoid the small puddles of blood on the floor. Balard was laying on his back with two shots to his head and one shot in his waist. The first thing William would have done was search for a pulse, but instead he searched Balard's body. Opening up the man's once white, no bloodstained suit, he saw a number of flooded papers in the internal pocket of his coat.

"Who did this?" Stunder asked.

"How the hell should I know?" Sanderson snapped back as he pulled out the papers and unfolded them. They were all titled field reports. They went from 1-6 and Sanderson knew he just had to read them. "So that's what you were after." He realized.

"We don't have time for this, Sanderson!" The scientist pointed out, but Sanderson raised his gun and shot back:

"Hold on, let me do my investigation." He began reading the papers and as he read out loud, the events of the city, which he was not told, soon came together.

-Field Report 01-

A recently turned group of zeds escaped the facility today and Dr. Klaus has requested that I take the time to file a small report on the incident. The zed escaped from the testing ground and apparently followed someone out the secret underground entrance near the back of the lobby. Only five staff members were surviving witnesses to the event as the others were killed or infected. As of now, a total of six subjects have managed to escape onto the streets. Measures via local security and outside assistance from the agency have been taken to track down the zeds and exterminate/capture them.

An internal investigation has also been launched to discover the cause of the escaped subjects. Agent Balard, our head of security, is currently heading this investigation despite his nearly direct involvement in the incident as a first respondent. Those subjects could be anywhere in the city. It's only a matter of time before they turn up. But Balard has confidence that this entire situation will be handled rather quickly and we can avoid any sort of major outbreak.

-Elliot Edwards

Author's answers to some questions:

Q. When does this take place.

A. Some time after MC4. The 1337 crew was being organized and there were ATP agent but at this time they were more of a less common member.

Q. Why does nobody say AAHW and the scientist be the only one to say zombies?

A. One, the first rule about the AAHW is never referring to it as the AAHW (FACT). Two, the scientist is the only one qualified to refer to the dead as zombies.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS, PLEASE ASK THEM ON MY PAGE IN THE FORUM PAGES OF PN2.


	7. Chapter 06 - Who dies next?

-Field Report 02-

We managed to recapture several subjects today with the assistance of the agency's teams and local law enforcement. One of the agents were bitten during the event and had to be sent off to the labs for experimentation. Poor soul. There are still two subjects on the loose but judging by the distance the other zeds reached in a few days, I think it's safe to say that the remaining subjects will be apprehended very soon, since they couldn't have gone far.

Agent Balard is still hosting is investigation and has offered to pay personnel out of pocket to check security footage of the zeds and report their findings to him so he can focus on capturing the zeds. I was going to sign up for it but another staff member with more seniority managed to snag it first. Tough luck I guess. There's a rumor going around that the disaster was planned by a double agent. A sort of inside job. I would pay no attention to these rumors but it all seems to… perfect.

I don't know. The first one that comes to mind as a possible suspect would be that Rodney guy. He's the second in command of security but he's not... all there. I know Soldats are a new thing but I don't think they're supposed to be as buggy as him. He's been organizing all the id numbers of the our personnel, complete with names and addresses, for no real reason. He has placed all this information on a compact dick down in his cubicle. I got a look at it when he was called down for a meeting. Almost every agent in the building is on there.

-Elliot Edwards

-Field Report 03-

I think you might have missed a memo but just in case word travels slow, the mission to exterminate the zeds has been successful. All subjects have been terminated and a cover up is taking place. Who knew they would be so… efficient with these sorts of situations. We're just having to file a few more reports, organize some papers, erase a few loose ends, but we'll get it all done by Thursday afternoon.

Well, three reports doesn't seem like much, but taking out the time to think of the proper wording is work enough for me. Protocol should come to an end tonight. See you guys to a game of cards!

-Elliot Edwards

-Field Report 04-

Uhh… the situation isn't over like I said it would be. There were several attacks on the East side of the city meaning that those attacks will probably appear around the rest of the city over the next few days. A radio broadcast has started to air here informing people to stay indoors. It reads as follows:

"All civilians are advised to stay put and lock all their doors and windows. Teams are being dispatched to rescue any survivors left uninfected in city. Agents will be on the scene as soon as possible. While teams are heading into the city, be aware that your local law enforcement and agents are organizing to deal with the undead threat. Please remain indoors and out of their way."

Many staff are concerned that this message might actually encourage civies to take up arms and retake their city, but command insists that they won't. They're to scared they say. I heard my team will be dispatched to the east side of the city to evacuate people from their houses and terminate the undead threat. If it's true, I hope we don't go out alone. I'd really like to get some help from the swat team.

-Elliot Edwards

-Field Report 05-

The situation has gotten significantly worse. In addition to the East side of town succumbing to the virus, the South side and parts of the downtown area have also been stricken with the virus. Additional personnel have been air dropped into the city to assist us in suppressing the outbreak. Orders are to kill all zeds and infected on sight. The science branch has been busy at work since this whole thing started, experimenting of the infected. What's wrong with them, don't they know there is nothing that can stop it?

Agent Balard has also gone missing. To tell the truth, I never trusted that guy to begin with. He probably left the city while he could, bastard. These reports aren't doing anything to help us and neither are most of the staff. They just want to leave it all up to the cops. Fortunately for them, the police set up a checkpoint yesterday in our wing of the city. Good thing too, provisions are running low. They should be able to hold the dead at bay while we prepare to leave.

On another note, Agent Rodney added the final info of the remaining staff on his CD today. I expect him to pick it up before he leaves the city. I'd like to get my hands on it myself and destroy it, things like that disk can put our operations in danger. The Soldat also said that he and Dr. Eric have plans on escaping. The guy's been apparently building a safe house down the street, stockpiling guns and ammo and stuff, to hold off until he can leave. He claims that he can use the supplies to arm the remaining civies in the area to fight off the dead until he can get a chopper to touch down in the streets and get himself out of here. I still don't trust him, and neither, Jack.

-Elliot Edward

P.S. Dr. Alvin contributed to this report.

-Field Report 06-

The police have been over run. They were able to hold for three days before breaking the line and scattering into the city. Now the zeds have begun to pour into our section of town. It's still relatively safe here, but we're losing ground fast. With Agent Todd missing, the ground forces are in disarray. Those damn cops didn't have proper training for this, we did. But that doesn't matter if we have no unity in our ranks. Unity is our strength. I've managed to kill about twelve zombies myself with my M4 and assistance from my team. So far, the team's only lost two out of twelve men; Agents Brian and Shawn, rest their souls.

I saw a number of civies attempt to escape the city this afternoon. They didn't have much luck though. They were quickly cornered by a group of Zeds in an alley way. Even if they did make it out of the city, it'd be pointless. There's a huge pile of debris at the end of the highway, along with tons of road spikes and other obstacles, probably placed there by our agency. Not to mention the army of agents that have gathered around the city to keep everyone in. No one's getting out of here unless it's by air, or until we've solved our dilemma of the living dead.

Sanderson was shocked at what he had read. Rodney a possible traitor? The Soldat wouldn't dare if he valued his safety. This would surely need thorough investigation regardless of what Sanderson though. Who knew what would happen if it was true. And what was Ballard's involvement? Who killed him? Was it the same agent that killed the others in the building?

"Stunder," Sanderson said to the scientist. "Is there anything you need to pick up in here before we leave?" Sanderson turned his back on the scientist who was already busy searching though one of the boxes that he pulled off the shelf.

"There's only a few files on my research that I have to get. It'll only take a minute." The Agent nodded and started walking to the door, pulling out his radio as he made his steps.

"Rodney, where are you?" He said into the tiny box as he pressed the side button, then let go.

"Waiting for your ass." Came the reply. "What do you think?" Sanderson didn't expect such sass so he fired back an order.

"Don't get technical with me. Have you found the exit yet?" There was a short delay in an answer, but it still came quick.

"Yeah… We found the exit." Sanderson sighed peacefully.

"Good. We're just getting some things together, we'll be right there, over."

* * *

Rodney looked down the long, dimly lit hallway, expecting any minute for zeds to come rushing through the light at him. But it didn't happen. He shook his head and looked over at the rest of the survivors standing at the other end of the hall near the exit doors. They were having their own separate conversations that would be of no interest to a soldat like him.

His eyes focused on Christopher. He was a photographer and a disciplined soldier. Chris was the kind of guy who would try everything he could to encourage morale, usually to no avail though.

The Soldat looked away once more and stared back down the dark hallway. He was leaning up against the wall at the time, while holding his bleeding side, which had dried by now, but still hurt. That's when he saw stick out quickly from a doorway before receding back into darkness. Rodney pushed himself off the wall and drew his degle from his pocket.

Getting a grip on his weapon with both hands, one on the handle and the other grasped over it, he slowly entered the hallway. The suspense would have the average ATP agent quaking in his shoes… But not the ATP agent. This Agent was the definition of brave in this sort of situation. The Agent was now standing at the edge of the doorway, leaning against the side.

He inhaled deeply, held it for a few second while listening for a sound. When he head it, he turned and slide into the doorway, pointing his firearm inside.

The room had a sheet of one way glass in one side and against the opposite side, a number of filing cabinets. Papers were sprawled out all over the floor. There was blood splatter on the inside of the one way mirror along with a bullet hole shot through it and dug into the wall in the room Rodney stared in.

But that was far from the most interesting thing in there. Standing in front of the soldat was a man in a black suit with a red lens, triple eyed goggle piece. He was holding two m1911's, one in each hand, and had them aimed at the soldat before him. He lowered them slowly as a smile with a sense of relief creeped onto his face.

"Boy am I glad to see you." The man said in a half asleep tone of voice. Rodney stared at him, his degale still locked on the target. He knew this man and this man knew him too. It was to much of a liability to let him stand for another minute.

"No, your not." Rodney responded, taking a quick shot at his target. The bullet from his gun rippled through the air and plunged itself into the chest of the enemy, who raised his guns up to aim at the soldat. He had no time to aim but did scream as he pulled the triggers of his guns, discharging their own rounds at the agent.

The roar of the weapons filled the hallway as two bits of metal headed straight for Rodney.

Cast:

Rodney Soldat

Connor Reynolds

William Sanderson

Thorn

Rocky

Stunder

Denis Himmler

Elliot Edwards (mentioned)

Paul


	8. Chapter 07 - Death

Denis panted as he tried to catch his breath while waiting for the others of his team to catch up. He had cut through the parking lot of a small chain mall to escape a group of zeds and was awaiting the rest of the agents to follow behind him. He could hear them coming, so there was no worrying that they might not have known which way he went.

The man inhaled deeply, finally getting his breath back to normal, and started to recall his younger years. He was never that much of a runner. Even though he went to the gym on a regular basis, he never did track much or even jog around town. Why run when you have no intent on retreating from the fight he would always say to himself. But now was the time for an exception.

As an agent, he was expected to never back down from a fight or retreat from a battle, it wasn't the agency's way of handling business and never would be. Ordering a retreat was actually just as frowned upon just as much as calling in sick. Denis should have stayed back and fought with his fellow workers but he didn't have the will power any more. He just wanted to leave the city. Little did he know he team would be delayed because of his actions.

Sanderson backed up slowly as the zed agent approached him, it's hands raised as a zed grunt followed right in behind it. The agent thought this would be a good time to practice his moves against the dead. William crouched down and prepared to execute his move. He inhaled deeply and with lightning speed, just as the zeds were about to grab him, he bounded up into the air, yelling as he did so. "Waahhhh Tah!"

Sanderson gave a fierce kick to the neck of the zed agent, sending the zombie tumbling back into the other and knocking them both to the ground. William planted his feet to the ground and smiled at his successful move. Those genetic enhancement from the ATP really made him into a cqc threat. Reaching into his coat, he produced his Beretta and calmly stepped over to the two zeds he just took down.

The zeds were slow to get up and never managed to fully get to their feet before William killed them. The undead agent moaned as it bent itself and placed one of it's hands on the ground, attempting to push its body up. It was a pitiful sight to the man to see this monster attempt to get at him after falling on it's ass and knocking down it's comrade.

Sanderson pressed the barrel of his weapon to the creature's head as it reached up to grab him. He fired, causing dark red blood to splash all over the suit of the Zed Agent and the ground as well as the Grunt behind it. The green hand shook briefly as the head plopped down on the road followed by its limb.

The agent looked over at the Grunt Zed who also swiped at him. As if it was crippled, it only reached for him weakly. The recruiter just shook his head, positioned the gun over at the creature's head and discharged his load (PAUSE). It immediately dropped making a pool of blood drench the sidewalk. A steaming hot bullet hole now protruded out of it's skull.

Sanderson smirked devilishly at his handy work and turned his head to take in his surroundings. He was standing on the sidewalk in front of a auto shop garage. The door was all dented and damaged from zeds or maybe a car that crashed but was moved. Either one would not surprise Sanderson. There were a stretch of other buildings along the road before it merged with the parking lot on the side of the street. It belonged to the same small chain mall that Denis had ran to. Not like Denis was an important member of the team, but every member counted. The zeds were swarming over the group too. Paul was taking shots with an AK-74U and kept one hand on the handguard as he fired down an alley that had a crowd of eight zeds, at the least. There were two bodies piled in the alleyway, too damaged to become undead, their corpses completely mutilated. A trash can lay knocked over with black plastic garbage bags spilling out of it onto the pavement. The zeds ignored the debris as usual and seemed uninterested in the bodies on the ground, they wanted the fresh meat in front of them.

As Paul took his shots, Stunder was taking single rounds at a couple of zeds out in front of a small shoe store that was across the street from the recruitment officer, Sanderson. The store had a shelf in the window of the building that had a few pairs of expensive boots and shoes that would add up to a few hundreds of dollars. The footwear was dusty from sitting out in the open without being cleaned occasionally, since there were no living staff remaining. The window had a large crack stretching across the glass, due to a stray shot from Stunder's P1445, but it was over all intact. The researched pulled the trigger of his gun, sending a round flying through the air, lodging it into the neck of the closest zed grunt. He was getting used to the recoil and aiming but was at least better than Paul at taking shots.

Christopher was only observing the battle, since he didn't have a weapon. Unlike Conner who was shooting at a cluster of zeds coming down the middle of the street with his remington 870. His rounds were doing great damage towards the five zeds that enthusiastically marched down the street to the survivor. The road was cracked and stained with blood from the holes that dripped from the zeds that came at him. He pulled down on his rack again and fired at the zed agent that attempted a lunge for him. The zed's head exploded in a mess of darkened red blood before it's body immediately dropped to the ground, lifeless and without even a quiver of an impulse to show.

Meanwhile, Thorn and Rocky took cover behind a sedan that had smashed into a street light, firing their weapons with one hand on the handguard and one on the trigger. The poll had fallen straight down on the car, almost crushing it into two pieces, smashing the windows in the process. The driver must have died on impact since there was a large blood splatter over the hood of the vehicle, along with a corpse lying it's head on the passenger's seat. Thorn had apparently overcome his fear of killing as evidence of him firing full auto at the army of the dead that approached him. There must have been thirty zed grunts with the addition of about nine zed agents mixed in the ranks.

It was all as if it was from some kind of movie where the heroes made their final stand against the enemy. But this was real life.

Sanderson looked around, took in the situation, and found himself running over to Engineers Thorn and Rocky. While he dashed over, the two managed to take down a few zeds as they got closer. Rocky turned his head to look at his boss and heard Sanderson yell over the gunfire:

"Get your ass moving soldier!" Thorn, unfortunately, didn't hear properly and stopped firing himself.

"What, Sir?!" He shouted. That was all the time needed for him to become infected. Out of the crushed car that he was taking cover behind, the person inside, who was infected, woke up and poked it's arms out the shattered window attempting to grab the nearest person. That wouldn't have been a problem but Thorn had positioned himself directly in front of the window, giving the creature a free bite.

The now turned Zed grunt reached through the twisted metal and broken glass, grabbed onto Thorns shirt and pulled him against the car. Thorn took one of his hands off his MP5 and screamed as twisted teeth sunk into the soft flesh in his back. Yellow blood immediately began to squirt it's way out of the wound and onto the ground, the car, and even the Zed's face. Sanderson immediately took hold of the situation as well as Rocky, and they both aimed their weapons inside the car. The two opened fire and let their bullets fly at the creature. When the first round entered the monster's skull, it let go and dropped it's head where the window was. Thorn jolted forward and grabbed at his wound, screaming, while two seconds of shooting followed to ensure the zombie was dead.

When Rocky and Sanderson ceased fire, the Zed's body laid slumped up against the door with it's head partially through the shattered window. Sanderson dropped his current mag and pulled out a replacement from his pocket, shoving it in his gun as Rocky took aim again at the crowd of zeds that neared them.

Thorn was obviously infected. The Zed bit straight through to his spine, almost scraping the bone in the process. The ATP Engineer applied pressure to the wound, whimpering, since the pain was so bad. Thorn was suddenly overcome with a feeling that was totally foreign to him. So foreign that he didn't know what to call it. He took his smg back in both hands and felt the blood drip down his side. The Engineer took one second to snap out of his pain and eject his magazine.

"We're falling back!" Sanderson yelled and stepped back, tapping Rocky's shoulder as he inched away. "Come on!" Rocky did just that and the two ran away from their position. Thorn looked up and watched as the other survivors, one by one, running after the group leader. But not Thorn. Thorn just opened up his satchel and pulled out another mag and while shaking a little, brought the magazine up into the receiver and turned to the crowd of dead.

"Come on!" He yelled raising his gun holding down the trigger. The bullets ripped through the crowd but failed to stop them. He backed up step by step as zeds from all around him seemed to just appear out of thin air. It took only a few feet for Thorn to back up against the front of a building. He still held down the trigger of his gun as they came at him.

Bullets pierced flesh and shattered bones of the monsters but the swarm just kept coming shuffling over the the corpses dead on the ground. Thorn just kept firing. "You want some more!?"

(Re 3 reference count: 01)

Thorn's mind raced as he fired from one side to the other. The zeds only kept getting closer, not even seeming to be affected by the bullets any more. It was only a matter of time before they were in grabbing range. Then it happened. One reached his a took a bite out of the side of his head. He screamed and turned all his attention to the zed and fired his remaining bullets at it. This allowed another zed from behind to tear off a piece of flesh from his neck area. Yellow blood spilled on to the ground and Thorn dropped his gun. He brought his hands up and grasped the wound. He let one final weakling scream go before the crowd of zeds began to rip and pluck and bight his succulent flesh. His blood seemed to send them into a frenzy.

"Are you guys missing someone?" Denis questioned the other agents as they reloaded their weapons and calculated how many rounds they had left. Sanderson looked around and the thought hit him like a bulldozer.

"Oh dammit we forgot Torn!" Sanderson stated in frustration. Stunder looked over as the Agent and decided to add to the conversation.

"Why the hell'd he do that?"

"He got bit remember?" The man of science shook his fist and pointed his finger at his leader.

"Well he shouldn't have stood so close to that car." Stunder countered "It's his own damn fault!"  
(Pwanchi Re ref. count: 01)  
"Right..." Sanderson reached in his coat and pulled out his phone. "I'll make the call to the boss and tell them to pick us up." Sanderson stepped away from the group of to the other side of the lot and entered in a phone number then head the device to his head. It rang a few times before someone picked up.

"Hello?" It was SI the engineer. He was apparently taking up the job of guiding Sanderson. Maybe it was because he was his personal guard.

"SI," Sanderson said in a stern voice "We're losing people down here and we need pick up immediately."

"Were you able to find the doctor?"

"Yes, he's dead. We found his body while looking for a cure. He committed suicide trying to protect it." There was a pause. SI taking in said information. He didn't really join to ask questions but curiosity grasped him in his fist.

"There's a cure?" There was a little hope in his voice. Maybe the city could be saved. But that was short lived hope as Sanderson's next words made sure to destroy it.

"We already used it." Sanderson informed him before he got any ideas. "Rodney became infected and he was vital to our mission."

"And where is this Rodney?" Sanderson thought for a minute about his location, remember that he didn't pull up with the group. He hesitated and considered withholding the information for his own good but command had eyes everywhere. They would see through any lie he dished out.

"He was left behind." He responded then quickly added: "It was my fault alone. We were in the lower levels of the building when we were separated. We didn't bother looking for him as he wasn't an asset."

"Okay," SI began. "I'm going to hold back on any further questions and let you deal with command. We will be dispatching a helicopter to the downtown area of the city. Be there when it arrives. The Auditor plans to use the drives and blast pure energy into the heart of the city tomorrow morning."

"Why tomorrow?" Yes why? Sanderson had more then enough time to get to the area and leave with still more than a day to escape the city. So why tomorrow.

"He wants to make sure that you have enough time while at the same time allow any survivors to escape the city."

"We came here because those damn survivors couldn't leave in the first place!" Sanderson yelled. SI had a quick answer.

"They heard a radio transmission and- hold on." There was a brief silence. Sanderson took the phone down and addressed his men.

"Hey guys?" He said. The others attention was quickly drawn to him. "Everyone start walking to the downtown area, I'll meet you there. A chopper will be inbound in that area." He turned away from the team again and picked the phone back up. There was still silence.

The rest of the team, starting with Denis, turned down the street and started their march to the evacuation area. The doctor had worry on his brain when they got onto the road while the agents followed in behind him.

"Hello?" SI said finally into the phone. "I'm only allowed to tell you to go down town. All other information has been sealed to our eyes." Sanderson clenched the phone tightly in his hand, looked back over his shoulder at the team moving down the street, then turned back around. He raised his arm back then through the phone as far as he could.

"Excellent! I can't even access my own Intel!"


End file.
